Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Guitar heroes re-revisited

Paul Waggoner's guitar clinic last Friday mentioned 'guitar heroes', specifically the ones, Paul Waggoner himself looked up to. They were familiar names, they were my guitar heroes as well. I have many names to list from that shred era, 6 of whom are pictured above: 1) John Petrucci 2) Steve Vai 3) Joe Satriani 4) Richie Kotzen 5) Kirk Hammett 6) Paul Gilbert. I bet these awesome players are still on your idol list today. Actually these 6 terribly talented players are the ones who I stopped looking up to. Along the way, they let me down somewhat but I still respect them for their contributions to the cause.

I still hold these individuals you see here in high regards (there are some more on my list, let's just make do with these 6 in the mean time). They are from that shred era, more importantly they remain relevant & on top of their game, as mundane as they may be (eg: Malmsteen): 1) Allan Holdsworth 2) Frank Gambale 3) Brett Garsed 4) Yngwie Malmsteen 5) Steve Morse 6) Greg Howe.

The question is; why change my pool of heroes? Why now? Simple answer: I age, I have a different focus now compared to when I first started out. I also gave up on the people who lost focus & became a shadow of their former selves. A good example would be Kirk Hammett. He let a single piece of equipment get the better of him. I'm not here to specifically hold anyone accountable for their downturn but I justify why I feel this way today. The bottom line is, we all have our different sources of inspirations, different individuals whom we look up to & we change over time.